To Kill the Pope (37 page)

*  *  *

Tim Savage dragged himself from the empty esplanade, leaving Kurtski's body behind, back into the narrow streets of Fanjeaux. He walked again past the house of St. Dominic toward a church he saw ahead. It was the thirteenth-century Church of Notre-Dame de l'Assomption, erected on the vestiges of Fanum Jovis, the temple of Jupiter. The church was dark and cool; it belonged to another time.

Tim needed the peace of the church to pray and collect his thoughts. He sat in the front pew, facing the altar. What was he to do next? Under the circumstances, should he keep his appointment with Archbishop Leduc? There was no doubt that someone really wished Tim dead—evidently in connection with his pursuit of the truth, for there could be no other reason—and, through a strange and sinister coincidence, had hired Kurtski to do the job. Should that prevent him from continuing and perhaps even completing his mission? Should he abandon it to save his life because his invisible enemies would surely try again? Tim felt so close to the end of the investigation that he must take the ultimate step. And, inevitably, that step had to be the meeting with the archbishop. Tim had already learned enough to be absolutely
convinced that Leduc, and only Leduc, could provide him with the final answer. But how would get to the abbey?

“You are bleeding, Father! Are you hurt?” a feminine voice said behind him. Tim turned around and saw an elderly—and motherly—woman, a scarf on her head, looking at him with concern. He now felt the sting in the shoulder where Kurtski's third bullet had grazed him. Touching it, Tim felt on his fingers the wetness of his own blood.

“Oh, it's nothing, Madame,” he said lightly. “Nothing serious . . .”

“Well, Father, you don't
want
it to become serious,” she said with severity. “We have no hospital or clinic here so you will come to my house to have it bandaged.”

The house was across the street from the church, and the woman expertly cleaned the bullet scratch and applied a dressing to it after Tim had removed his jacket and his shirt. She fed him lunch of a thick soup and bread, never asking what had happened, how Tim had been hurt. But Tim had a question of his own after finishing the meal.

“How does one get to that Cisterian abbey of Villelongue, there by Saissac? he asked.

T
IM HAD LEFT
his green rental Peugeot at the door of the café at the entrance to Fanjeaux, but the small square swarmed with
gendarmes
from Mirepoix. Tim could see them, their cruisers' blue lights flashing furiously, when he walked to the town's arched gate overlooking the square.

It would not do for an American Jesuit in clerical garb and armed with a Luger to be detained and interrogated by the French police, particularly when Kurtski's body, his pistol still in his death-stiffened hand, were found at the edge of the esplanade. Obviously, Tim could not risk it, being now in effect a fugitive from French justice—a criminal—and realizing that it would not take a Poirot's investigative genius to link him and Kurtski. Explanations would be impossible, and even the full truth would not seem credible to French law enforcement.

Therefore Tim resolved to lie. The elderly woman who had taken care of him was unaware of the fracas on the square and the gun duel on the esplanade, Tim's shoulder wound notwithstanding, and she proceeded to give him directions on how to reach the abbey.

“But,” he said, “the problem is that I don't have a car.”

“Then, how did you get here?” the woman asked.

“I came by bus from Carcassonne, getting off at Fanjeaux and hoping to run into somebody driving to the abbey who would give me a ride,” Tim answered, the image of the innocent American priest-tourist. “I've read a lot about the Cisterian abbey and I understand that it is quite beautiful.”

“Oh, yes, it is very beautiful and you shouldn't miss it,” the woman said, glancing sideways at her husband. He was a stout Languedocian, a retired farmer, relaxed and comfortable in his
blue coveralls, puffing on his pipe in his armchair by the window. He caught his wife's look.

“If you have no car, Father, I'd be happy to drive you to the abbey,” he said, getting up. “I have to go in that direction anyway . . .”

*  *  *

It took the man's pale blue
Deux-Chevaux
Renault clanking wreck of a car no more than twenty minutes to get down to the square—it was still crawling with police, but no attention was paid to them—and drive three or four miles north on the highway to the turnoff for the abbey. The splendidly preserved structure sat in a thicket of trees, surrounded by yew hedges, at the end of an elongated, shady valley.

Tim thought that the Cisterian abbey was perfectly chosen as the venue for the archbishop's residence. It was built in 1150 by the “gray” or “white” monks, as the Cisterians were variously called, to serve as a monastery for what was one of the oldest religious orders in Europe, founded by St. Robert in 1098. Their name came from the Latin
cisterna,
meaning cave or cavern, and, accordingly, their philosophy and theology called for a return to simplicity, the rigorous life, and the self-denial of primitive monachism. For a time, up to the mid-fourteenth century, the Cisterians were the most powerful order in Western Europe. Small wonder, thought Tim, that Archbishop Leduc felt safely at home in the
cisterna,
the symbol of extreme conservatism.

Thanking the old farmer for the ride, Tim walked up to the abbey's garden gate. He was greeted by two young athletic men in black suits, guns bulging under their jackets, with earpieces and wires disappearing under their shirt collars. They seemed to be clones of the guards at the Fraternity's seminary.

“Father Savage, I presume?” the slightly older of the two guards asked Tim gravely in English. He must have learned it from reading up on Stanley and Livingstone, Tim decided. The formal, respectful reception at the abbey struck him as faintly amusing after his shoot-out with Kurtski.

“Yes, I am,” he said. “I have an appointment with Archbishop Leduc and I trust I am not too late. I was unavoidably delayed on my way here.”

“Of course,” the guard told Tim, indicating with a wide, inviting gesture of his arm the entrance to the abbey. “His Grace is expecting you.”

He escorted him inside, passing two other tough-looking young men stationed in the spacious vestibule. Tim noticed surveillance television cameras high on the wall, pointed at the entrance door. The guard opened a heavy oak door on the right, holding it for Tim.

“Please, go ahead,” he said.

Archbishop Leduc was standing in the center of an elegantly appointed library: bookcases along the walls, a deep fireplace topped by a marble mantelpiece between windows looking out on the garden, and a Louis XV desk with ormolu mountings in a corner under a portrait of Pius V The archbishop's tall frame was emaciated and stooped, giving him the appearance of total exhaustion, but when he stepped forward Tim saw his deeply set blue eyes, hard, unforgiving, and cold as ice, under thick dark eyebrows. Tim realized in a flash why Leduc's photographs had seemed so familiar to him.

“Good day, Your Grace,” Tim said in French. He paused and added, choosing his words with care, “It is an honor to see you again . . .”

The archbishop extended his right hand as if to have his ring kissed, an old habit, but withdrew it immediately. He nodded slowly at Tim.

“Yes, of course, we
have
met before, and it is good of you to remember,” he replied in a deep, hoarse voice. “And I'm sorry about your problems this morning.” Tim could not determine whether the old man was being sarcastic or simply polite in an old-fashioned way.

“And I remember you very well, too,” the archbishop went on. “You are the highly respected Islam scholar, and we were together in your office in Rome the day the Holy Father was shot, five years ago or so, wasn't it?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Tim told him. “You were at my office and we talked for a long time that afternoon about Islam fundamentalism. I recall that your experience with Muslims during your years in Casablanca had you very concerned with subversive Islamic movements and terrorism developing these days in Africa and the Middle
East. I also recall wondering at the time why, given your own knowledge and expertise on Islam, you were wasting so many hours with me.”

Leduc looked into Tim's eyes with his hard stare, holding it steadily for a long moment.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he said thoughtfully. “But, I must say, it was a strange coincidence that we were there, at your office, discussing Islam fundamentalism and terrorism at the very moment when that Turk—a Muslim—nearly succeeded in murdering the Holy Father. I guess that was the ‘Muslim Connection' people were talking about after the shooting . . . It was a miracle that the pope survived the attempt.”

“If I may repeat your words, Your Grace—when we heard on the radio that he would live—that it was ‘God's Will,' ” Tim said. “I can still hear you saying it . . . And I, too, think it is an astounding coincidence that we now meet here.”

Leduc contemplated Tim for another long instant. Then he gestured toward a corner, across the library from his desk, and deep armchairs upholstered in red leather.

“Do sit down, Father Savage,” he said. “I understand that your new scholarly pursuit is French heretics of the past and the present. And that you have questions about our Fraternity. I shall be happy to be of help, if I can. . . .”

*  *  *

“The abbé over at the seminary in Mirepoix had the impression that you regard our Fraternity as heretics and our beliefs as heresy,” Archbishop Leduc declared. “And I am curious how you reached your conclusion. Is that the result of your own deep studies over the last weeks or months or have you simply accepted the official view of your bosses at the Holy See?”

Tim stirred uneasily in his armchair. Leduc had smoothly thrown him on the defensive with his sarcasm, after only a few minutes of conversation about his “own deep studies” over such a ridiculously short period. Even more, however, Tim was disturbed that the archbishop knew so much about his activities—and so quickly about his
contretempt
with Kurtski.

How did he know that Tim had been trying to find out the nature of the Fraternity of St. Pius V's involvements? How did he
know about his inquiries? How had the abbé in Mirepoix discovered his identity, and why had he gone through all the motions of friendly hospitality, including the invitation to Tim to meet the archbishop? And was the archbishop aware of his mission for Monsignor Sainte-Ange? Had he learned about Tim's meetings with the imams in Paris and Toulouse—and about Istambul? How did Kurtski fit into the picture? Why did someone wish him dead? It was all too neat, too well orchestrated!

“Well,” he replied truthfully, “I cannot say that I've actually reached any conclusions as to whether the Fraternity constitutes a heresy because it's not my function to do so. That's what I told the abbé. It is the business of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith back in Rome. But the reason I am trying to study French Catholic heresies, like the Cathars and the new movements like the Fraternity, is that I am basically interested in fundamentalisms—including Islam fundamentalism that you and I discussed at my office over five years ago. You might say that I am concentrating on comparative fundamentalisms.”

“Comparative fundamentalisms?” Leduc repeated, sounding incredulous. “Is that a new discipline under the teachings of those liberal fools of the Second Vatican Council or is that an invention of the Jesuits who, in my opinion,
are
liberal fools as they have always been? I must say that I'm not surprised that the Marquis de Sade was a pupil of the Jesuits in Paris for four years, something I've been told by our scholars just the other day! And so was Fidel Castro in Cuba!”

“It's not a discipline, but a reality,” Tim said, having just invented “comparative fundamentalist studies.” He went on: “In today's world fundamentalism is a powerful phenomenon, whether it is Islamic, Christian, or Jewish. I sometimes wonder whether it might become the religious hallmark in the approaching new century and millennium. Therefore I believe it is appropriate for me, as an Islam scholar, to look at contemporary Christian fundamentalism. After all, our three monotheistic faiths descend from Abraham, and parallels do exist . . . And, you know, in my country we have important Christian fundamentalist denominations, especially among Protestants—like some Baptists, Pentacostals, and so forth—and some fundamentalist movements
that overlap with politics, like our new Christian Right . . . So the French experience is very relevant to my work. Anyway, my superiors approve of it.”

“I am afraid that you are confusing doctrines, faiths, and heresies in the Catholic Church, Father Savage,” the archbishop remarked. “But so are your superiors, including Pope Gregory XVII, who claims that I have led the Fraternity into schism, but who, as a Frenchman, should know better . . . Would you like for me to explain what we are and what we stand for?”

“Yes, please, Your Grace,” Tim answered. “I'm sure I shall never find a better source.”

“To begin with, forget fundamentalism,” Leduc said. “It's pure nonsense as far as we are concerned. But you must have heard the description of ‘Integrism' applied to us, and this is more precise. We are proud to be Integrists. And ‘Integrism' comes from the Latin adjective
integer,
meaning ‘untouched, entire.' To the Fraternity, it stands for the untouchability of the Church's eternal doctrine, the doctrine of the Council of Trent defined forever in the sixteenth century and beautifully reaffirmed by St. Pius X in 1903—not such a long time ago—who asserted that his principal objective was ‘to restore all things in Christ, in order that Christ may be all and in all' and ‘to teach and defend Christian truth and law.' That is exactly what the Fraternity does. That is why I founded the Fraternity in the first place—to defend the true Church from the baboons of the Second Vatican Council. And I was right.”